S8 E83: Getting A Book Deal? It's Possible! with Travel Writer & Photographer Christine Chitnis

Get the show’s transcript

"CC: I always tell my clients, every word needs to earn its place on the page, even though it's 40 documents. This is an elevator pitch. You have to condense your idea into something that's bite-sized, something they can understand and get excited about. I mean, isn't that essentially what we're doing in magazine pitching, right?"

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:19] YD: Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Travel Media Lab Podcast. I’m your host, Yulia Denisyuk, an award-winning travel photographer, writer, storyteller, community builder, podcaster and entrepreneur working with publications like National Geographic, The New York Times and more. Traveling to interesting places around the world and producing stories that I'm excited about. Travel Media Lab is our platform for helping you break into the travel media space where we share insights, tips, advice, and stories from people working in this industry.

On today's episode, I'm talking to Christine Chitnis, a Rhode Island based published book author, and writer and photographer contributing to publications like The New York Times, Elle, Travel + Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler, and more. I started following Christine on Instagram a while ago because of her beautiful photography book called Patterns of India. I'm a huge fan of her and her work. In this conversation, we get into the realities of working as a travel photographer and writer as a mom of three, how book concept pitching differs from and is the same as pitching ideas for publications, the process of planning a book proposal, and what stories Christine is working on now.

We also get into a conversation about impostor syndrome, all the “should haves” we burden ourselves with, and aging in the creative industry, a personal favorite topic. It was a very meaty conversation. We covered a lot of ground, and we could have easily gone on for another hour. I am so excited to interview Christine and I hope you enjoy this conversation.

Before we get into this episode, I want to give a shout out to AWill1494 who left us this review on the Apple podcast platform. "If you'd like to learn about travel writing and so many other things in such a way that you feel like you're sitting in a coffee shop, laughing and chatting with friends who also love travel, this is the podcast for you." Thank you so much for your kind feedback, AWill1494 and for listening to our show.

Leaving us a rating and review is one of the best ways you can support our show. So if you haven't done that yet, this is your invitation. Please do that today as you're listening to this episode. All right, let's get into the conversation with Christine. 

[EPISODE]

[00:02:41] YD: All right. Welcome, Christine to our podcast. I'm super, super excited to have you on and share your thoughts, and your wisdom with us here on the podcast on Travel Media Lab. How are you, my friend?

[00:02:55] CC: I'm good. It's so good to see you. I'm excited to be doing this and just really honored to be here. You know I'm a huge fan of your podcast. 

[00:03:03] YD: Yay! Yes, I know, Christine. It's so cool, right? It's so cool that we found the time to do this. For our listeners, Christine and I have known each other for some time on Instagram. We've been following each other's work. Christine actually reached out to me to do an individual session in preparation for a conference that she was attending. When she reached out to me, I was like, "Wait! What?" Because I am such a big fan of her work and her book. I don't remember how I started following you. I think somebody shared something, I don't even remember. But I remember thinking, "Wow! This woman is amazing. Look at that book." I was still fan-girling you, and then you messaged me and I'm like, "What? What's happening here?" But I loved it. I loved it.

[00:03:46] CC: Thank you. Well, the fan-girling goes both ways, for sure. I know we're going to get into it. But the book world and magazine world are very similar in some ways, and very different in others. In some ways, I feel like I know so much, and in other ways, I feel like I know so little. I was grateful for a one-on-one session. Pitching is always tricky, and sometimes it just helps to have another set of ears to just bounce things off of. Am I getting this right? What am I doing? I come up with those questions a lot. I loved our one-on-one session. Then we got to meet just recently at IMM, which was so much fun.

[00:04:22] YD: I know. Yeah, it was amazing to meet you in person. Just before we started recording, we were talking how IMM is such an intense experience because you're going through so many meetings. I've talked about this before, so you guys, if you listen regularly to the podcast, you should remember this name, IMM Travmedia. It's this huge conference that happens once a year. Christine and I met there in person, which was awesome. But by the end of it, we were both so exhausted from all those conversations.

[00:04:52] CC: Yes. I'm definitely more of an introvert. I love one-on-one conversations and small group, but big settings like that, it's overwhelming for me. I loved all the meetings and I did – gosh, all of them. I should have taken your advice, and scheduled a few breaks for myself, because there's barely even time to go get a drink of water, use the bathroom. It was wild. But I did all those meetings, and then there was a cocktail hour. I don't know how people did it, because I was done. I was absolutely fried. I didn't get to say goodbye, snuck out, and went home, put my feet up, and totally just crashed, because I was exhausted. But it was a great conference. I think my favorite part honestly was meeting all my fellow writers, some of whom I'd never met in person, I followed on Instagram. Getting to meet them in person was probably the highlight for me, so I loved it.

[00:05:38] YD: Totally. In fact, I was talking to an editor friend of mine, and asking her if she's going to come. She was like, "Well, no, at this point in my career, I don't really need it. I'm already – people already messaged me outside of the conference,” PR companies and tourism boards reached out to her, they know her. So she's like, "No, I'm not coming." I thought, "Well –" because I'm kind of in the same place, right? I don't necessarily need to go and make these connections with a lot of these tourism boards. But for me, what I've realized is that, actually, this is what I love as well, because it was so amazing to see everybody in person.

This industry can be isolating and lonely sometimes, because we're all working on our own, on our own stuff. And yes, sometimes we meet on press trips, but it's still far and few between. I just love that feeling of kind of coming back to the camaraderie of meeting some of the people that I know in the industry and saying hi. For me, it matters, so I'm going to continue coming every year.

[00:06:32] CC: Absolutely. I feel the same, I do. I'm very lucky, very privileged, I get a lot of wonderful trip offers, PR and all of that, so I do feel well connected. And yet, I already scheduled my first trip with someone that I met at IMM, going on a private trip down to do a story based on a conversation that I had, actually, outside of my meetings. We just connected at lunch, and she was representing a place I was excited to go, so that's already happening. I would say, even if you are someone whose inboxes relatively full of press requests and PR, it's still worthwhile. You can always expand your network. I think as I get older, I realize that my network is probably the most powerful tool that I have, and why not grow it and why not meet new people. I'm always open to that. I think it's just something I love to do. 

Again, even if big groups are really intimidating or overwhelming, which trust me, they are for me, I think you can find those small moments of connection. That's what I really, really liked about the whole experience.

[00:07:29] YD: Totally. Oh my God. We could have a whole episode about IMM. In fact, actually, we do. So, you guys, we'll link in the show notes, because we did an episode with one of our community members. That was her first-time experience and we recorded that whole thing. So definitely check it out as well.

But I want to talk to you about the story that you published in Elle magazine called ‘Into the Wild’, which is such an incredible, big, meaty story with sort of three separate vignettes from Rwanda, from Tanzania, and from Uganda that all explore how, post-COVID, as we're sort of returning to travel, how conscious tourism can help some of those communities and the wildlife in that destination flourish. I loved that story. It was so beautiful. I loved reading about the Dunia Camp in Tanzania and I just loved, loved how you ended that part of the story with, "I've got this." That was so beautiful, that ending it. I was like, "Oh, damn. That is good." As a writer, I kind of recognized that beautiful ending. So yeah, kudos to you. It was so beautiful.

Our listeners, we'll link to that story as well in the show notes. Definitely check it out. It's a beautiful piece of work from Christine. But I want to know sort of what do you love about the story that you wrote for Elle?

[00:08:48] CC: Oh, goodness. Well, I love, first of all, how it happened. I used to write quite a bit for Martha Stewart Living. One of my editors there introduced me to the editor at Elle. To me, there's no greater compliment than when an editor passes your name along. I felt so deeply honored that she thought enough of my writing, and what I write about the subjects, how I tackle difficult subjects. The fact she felt I was in a position to contribute to Elle in that way was, first of all, I was just so honored. I was introduced to the editor there and she basically said, "We are looking for a travel feature that goes outside of kind of our typical destinations." They do tend to be pretty Europe focused.

I had been really thinking about the safari industry, what a post-COVID comeback was looking like. Really, I often take the lens of women in travel. I try and say like what voices are missing from these stories? And I felt like a lot of the safari pieces I was reading were very male dominated. You always saw the guides were portrayed as male, the safari camp owners were male. It was like –

[00:09:51] YD: Written by a male writer.

[00:09:53] CC: By a male writer, yeah, and a photographer and the list goes on. For me, it was this – I know there's women there, I know that they're involved. I know that the tourism sector in Africa, especially in this safari sector, it's big money and it's an important part of the economy. Women need to be getting a slice of that.

[00:10:11] YD: Women needs to be getting the slice of that pie. It's a big part of the economy.

[00:10:15] CC: I think when I – Elle, to me actually wasn't on my radar in terms of pitching travel stories, to be honest. In my mind, it was beauty and fashion and profiles of women in many sectors, but it just hadn't occurred to me to pitch them. The fact that they came to me, it was a great time for me to pitch this story where women, the focus in the safari industry. It was kind of both stories. It was, how is this safari industry recovering after COVID? How did COVID affect the tourism industry across the countries, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda? Then it was also, there was a look at conservation efforts. Then really, I think, to me, there were so many highlights, but an all-women-run safari camp was such a great story. I just, still kind of it's a pinch-me moment that I got to write about it.

I have to tell you, I was solo traveling. I know you do this quite a bit. I'm on my own, I'm going halfway across the world and I'm going to an incredibly remote site. It was offseason, and so I was the only traveler. Showing up to a place where it was all women was such an incredible experience. I felt incredibly safe, I felt really well cared for, I felt seen. I'm not sure that would have happened in a camp that was predominantly men. I think it would have just felt very different. So, I was really excited to write that story, the Dunia camp. Then of course, Rwanda was incredible, seeing all the conservation efforts around the gorillas, being able to trek and see the gorillas and really understand how volcano safaris has played such a role in both the tourism there, but in such a thoughtful way, and had such an impact on the local economy and conservation. I mean, what a dream story, right? It was like, it was the dream. 

Then, the Uganda piece was heavily reported. Again, I was like, "Who are these women conservationists and scientists behind this? How does public health and conservation intersect? So very big. I kind of joke sometimes. I like to bite off a lot more than I can chew. Then, I get like, what have I done? I'm talking about women in travel, post-pandemic recovery, conservation, public health, and it's totally overwhelming. I think when it all ends up coming together, it's like a miracle/almost pushes me into a panic attack every time.

[00:12:34] YD: Actually, let’s spend a little bit of time here. How do you sort of bring yourself out of that, “Ah, what have I done” mode? Because this is actually something that happens a lot inside our community where people are like, "Well, I'm even afraid to pitch this because I think this is too big for me." I'm afraid, what if they say yes, and I actually have to write the thing." How do you sort of get yourself out of that mode, and still pitch and at the end of the day, you deliver the work? I always say, you have to trust yourself that you will deliver the work and take that leap, but I wonder how you approach it.

[00:13:07] CC: Well, I will say this. What you're seeing now in my career is the tip of the iceberg. That iceberg is a decade of writing. I started with local publications, a lot of times working for very little money, covering things that maybe other people didn't find interesting and wouldn’t find interesting. I covered everything in my community here in Rhode Island. I wrote – I mean, my archive of local small publications is huge. My archive of my national work is small. So I practice, and learning to work with editors and learning to say to an editor, "I'm overwhelmed and I really need help seeing the forest through the trees."

I used to be really scared that that was admitting weakness or admitting that you didn't know what you were doing. Now, I realized like, first of all, editors are just people, they want a great story. Of course, they want you to turn in clean copy, and have it be great and ready to go. But they also want to help you get there. I think having really honest conversations.

I worked with Kayla at Elle. She was a saint, because I did, I had moments where I was like, "I don't know where I'm going with this. I don't know how to put all this into 1000 words. Is this good? Is this good?" She'd be like, "This part can go. This needs to be condensed." Having a great relationship with your editor, being very organized, very communicative, meeting your deadlines. If you're doing those basic things, it's okay to go to them and ask for help.

I think for me, it's a combination of asking for help, and having a lot of experience and that for a long time was not glamorous. I know that you could look on my Instagram and think that my work in life is very glamorous. Now, first of all, it's not – most of the time, I'm like doing laundry because I have three kids or cooking 100 small snacks and meals a day. But it was for a very long time, it was not "glamorous" work. It was really just like local reporting, and writing for local publications and I still think those are some of the most valuable publications around because they help us connect to our local communities.

I was not afraid to start small, and I knew one day, I really had a goal of writing for national, but I knew I'd have to kind of work my way up there. I'm proud of that. I can look back at some of my early writing and be like, "This was not my best work, but I was learning." I'm like very gentle with myself that it was a process and it takes practice. If you're going to do it as a profession, I think you know, you do. You have to put in those hours. I put in a lot of hours before I was able to make this a full-time job and kind of get to the place where I am now.

[00:15:38] YD: Oh my God. I love everything you just said, Christine, because you're just really reinforcing all the points and all the messages that I always put out on the podcast. So I just love that so much, because that's exactly it, right? Yes, starting small and just really doing a lot of practice, writing a lot, working with editors a lot. I love that process of working with editors, is one of my favorite things in the whole process, because they almost always make your work so much better, so much stronger, and they see some things that you can see. That whole sort of exchange between you and the editor, for me, that's one of my favorite parts of the job. I love that you, you brought that up as well. 

Wow! I didn't even know that you had that extensive sort of background and experience in local publication writing. Wow, that's impressive, seriously. Because now, I can definitely see, I guess, like where those chops came from, right? They came from writing all that time with those local publications. It's amazing.

[00:16:39] CC: Absolutely. Again, I'm a mom. I've spent the past decade having kids. For a while, travel was not something I could do. I had babies at home, I have three kids. So, I still wanted to write and I think there's incredible stories to be told just down the street. I love the community, we have a really rich food community here, I wrote a lot of food pieces, restaurant reviews, small farms, people doing really interesting things in agriculture. I would write about anything.

During those years, I do, I think I honed my craft, and I knew I couldn't be far from home. I was either pregnant, or nursing or had babies, so that was my life. From there, I kind of transitioned more into lifestyle writing. I was writing for Martha Stewart Living, I wrote for the New York Times during the pandemic, their home section. I did like, how to naturally dye easter eggs and how to make beautiful Christmas cookies. I'm proud of kind of what I do at home, and I love writing about home, and gardening and all of that stuff. 

Then, really, and I'm sure we'll get into this. But when my book came out, that really changed the trajectory of my writing career and allowed me to step into the travel space. But before that, I was really more of a kind of home and garden and local writer. But I had my eye on the prize. I was like, as soon as I can start taking some trips and do that without kind of sacrificing the home front, it was more – my husband's super supportive. It was more about making sure that my kids were old enough to be okay with me traveling, because some of my trips are long. I was able to step into the travel space and that's really been my dream. So, I do kind of feel like all of that was leading up to this place where I am now. I still have big dreams and goals, but I do kind of feel like I am where I've always wanted to be and that's a really exciting feeling.

[00:18:28] YD: Yeah. I love that so much. I love that story and that example. It's a great reminder for us too, that sometimes it takes a while to get to the space where you want to be. For a variety of reasons, you were raising your kids, you were doing that for a while. Having that vision, which is also something that we talk about often is having that vision, knowing where you want to go and then being patient, I guess with yourself and knowing that just because you're not there yet, it's not a failure at all. You're working towards it. Sometimes, it can take a while, but that's just so, so awesome.

[00:19:02] CC: I will say too, I always had to work other jobs. I mean, there was a financial reality. I think that's so important to recognize. I mean, there are some that can jump right into freelance writing full time. That was never my reality. Again, we had a family, there were demands. I worked in different ways to kind of have that steady paycheck. I mean, we liked to joke for a while, like my husband and I would joke that my job supported my writing habit. I was like, I was working a job so that – but I was burning the candle on both ends. I was working during the day, come home with my kids, and then I was writing and pitching in my off hours at night when I got the kids to bed or whatnot.

But it was so important to me to keep that little flame alive and not let it die. I worked in different sectors in education, and nonprofit and different things like that. But I did kind of always keep this little flame alive of my writing career, and I knew that one day, I'd have the time to kind of go all in, but it took a while to get there. I mean, it's took me, to be honest, over a decade to be able to do it full-time.

For me, it was about getting to a place where I could earn a paycheck that was going to support what I needed in our family. I'm always pretty realistic about that, because I don't want to paint a picture like, one day I woke up and just decided to be a freelance writer, it didn't happen like that. It definitely took a long time to build it to the point where it is a sustainable career. I'm also very cautious in that way. So I might have maybe drawn that out longer than I needed to. But for me, when I finally got to a place where, okay, this is enough of a paycheck where I can leave my other work, that was a great moment. That really only came two years ago.

[00:20:37] YD: Yeah. I love that we're having this conversation, because that's so important, right? Exactly that, that transition doesn't happen overnight. It takes time. It takes time to build your roster of editors, of relationships. We didn't touch upon this in a lot of detail, but we did talk earlier how your Martha Stewart Living editor introduced you to your Elle editor and how important that is. Because that is just such a different way to start a relationship with a publication rather than cold pitching somebody and never hearing back from them. Because you're just another writer who's trying to start working with them.

Those relationships, it takes a while to build that too, so all of that sort of thing. But listen, I want to say right now that I'm just so impressed with everything you're doing, because now that you have expanded on that picture of having a job, you have three kids, and then you're doing this at night. Plus, you're a photographer as well. We didn't even talk about that at all yet, but you're a photographer as well and your book, Patterns of India, is a gorgeous photography book. Now, I'm just like, "Wow! This woman, she's incredible."

[00:21:47] CC: Well, I'm the firstborn daughter, so I'm that type A overachiever, people pleaser, overachiever to the nth degree. Yeah, I would love to tell you. I mean, Patterns of India is like my heart's work. My husband is from India and we spent over a decade traveling to India together. First, just the two of us when we were married. We've been married 15 years now. Then, when the kids were little, we were able to take them and it's a really important piece of our family. It's really important to us.

The pandemic kind of put a hold on our travel to India, and we have yet to be back. But my husband's been back several times. So, we traveled over a decade there, and I would just bring my camera, because I'm a photographer, and I had no agenda. I think sometimes, that's what allowed that book to be really like, they were just my photos of a place I really loved, and a place that became really important to me as I saw it through my husband's eyes, and met his network, and friends and everyone there. It's just a very intimate book.

I had a huge archive by the time I decided to do something with it. That was really because people just kept saying like, "You should do something with all of these photos." I had a blog way back in the day, I'd put them on there, but there was never really a plan. But from the very first time I landed in India, I think with my photographer's eye, I could see these color stories. It was like, "Oh, these colors repeat in all of these beautiful ways,” right? You're at the flower market in the morning, and you're seeing the roses and the marigolds, and then you see them in the drapes of the sari, and then you go and see a beautiful architecture, and it has the fresco paintings and those echo the same – I was seeing these color stories kind of echo throughout the country. I think without even knowing it, it was really taking photos of these color stories.

When it came time to kind of put the book together, that's really what I wanted to lead with, was that, these colors, in a country that's so expansive with so many languages, so many religions, so many cultures. These are the things that bind – kind of the ties that bind, and it was really these colors. I took that idea and really expanded it into the book. I landed at Clarkson Potter, and I think, I will always be so grateful because it's a little bit of an odd concept and they were accepting of it. They said, "How about instead of colors, we look at it through the lens of patterns and we try and understand the history and culture through both the colors and the patterns?”

It was very smart, because when – and we can get into this. When you're trying to sell a book, you are thinking about marketing as well. That allowed it to become a book that could be inspiring to artists, that could be inspiring to interior designers. So was no longer just a travel book, but it was a book of colors and patterns that could inspire widely. 

That was so smart of them, because I think it helped it reach such a large audience. So instead of people that only had a connection to India, who had traveled there, or lived there or worked from there, it kind of opened it up into different segments of the population. A lot of artists tell me they love it. It provides inspiration for textile designers, and watercolorists. That to me has been so gratifying to see, because I really wanted it to reach a wider audience, and I think that it has. It's done better than I could have done dreamed of, and now has led to my second book, which is going to be Patterns of Portugal.

[00:25:06] YD: Wow. I love that. I love that story so much. I was going to actually ask you, how did you come up with that concept of Patterns of India? But now, the way you explain it, that makes total sense. It's amazing that you were able to find such a great partner in that publishing house, Clarkson Potter.

[00:25:20] CC: Clarkson Potter. Yeah, it was. I really do, I'm so grateful because they supported me through the entire process, and especially in the marketing and promotion, making sure that it got out in the world. My book came out in March of 2020.

[00:25:35] YD: Oh, I didn't know that.

[00:25:35] CC: I was devastated in the beginning, I thought, "This is it. There's no way. Everyone was stocking up on toilet paper, no one was buying books." Then what happened is, as we all were forced in indoors, pretty much, people got tired of their Netflix, and they got tired of – and they started ordering books. 2020 was one of the best years for book sales. So, I'm really grateful that my book kind of benefited from this upswing in book sales, and especially beautiful books that kind of transported people. So, Patterns of India, I really credit my Instagram community, the influencers that shared it, people that just – not even influencers, just everyone who was sharing the book. I really think that's how it just kept reaching new and wider audiences. It was kind of just a groundswell of support for the book. Especially during lockdown, it kind of gave people a window into travel again.

I can't believe it, it's coming up on its third year. It's three years old, and it's still selling well and finding new audiences. I'll get pictures of people who in faraway lands are like, "I saw this in a hotel, or in a bookstore, at a museum." I'm so grateful, I don't think I ever thought it could do this well. So I just continue to be a little bit awestruck, and very, very grateful. I also was really aware of the fact that I was a white woman writing about a country that was not my own. I'm very glad that people could see it was rooted in a deep respect and love of a country that I got to know through my family, my husband. So it really – it's a personal project, although, again, I'm very aware of kind of my privilege going into that situation. What I hear from people is, they can see a really deep respect for that culture. Again, I spent a very long time getting to know it before I even thought about writing about it. I hope that shows.

[00:27:26] YD: Yeah. That's actually an interesting point, because that's a conversation that we often have inside the community as well. When do you know that you are right to tell that story? When are you the right person to tell that story and when you're not? I love how you're positioning it, which is something that I think about often as well, in terms of – because I do a lot of work in the Middle East, for example. So how do I have the mandates to tell someone those stories? For me, it comes back to actually the same thing. It's having ties with the community, it's spending a lot of time there, it's learning about the place and the culture intimately before I can say that I'm the right person for this job, let's say, which is different from a lot of the dynamics that are happening in the industry where we're sort of getting parachuted in. Although there's less and less of that happening now, but still it happens that we're parachuted in, and then we're writing about something. 

But even in those cases, I think it's interesting to think, and this is something that we were discussing at IMM, actually. Which is that, you are the vessel, you can think of yourself as the vessel for the story. And it's not your story, you are just the vessel, right? And it's the story of whoever it is that you're – the people and the characters in the story are, which I think is a helpful way to think about that. 

[00:28:38] CC: Well, I think also, as someone who really does – I mean, most of my writing is about women in travel. That already is a commonality. I'm going into spaces where I am interviewing predominantly women. I think we face a lot of similar challenges. A lot of times, I'm interviewing mothers, and we're talking about work life balance. Our kids are playing together while I take their photo. So I try not to go in camera blazing, taking photos, doing my interviews. I try and really establish a personal connection.

I find that woman to woman, mother to mother, woman to woman, either way, I'm able to do that in a way I don't think a man could, especially when it comes to portraiture. Especially in a place like India, where there's still a lot of modesty around taking photographs, I always ask for permission. Unless we're talking a busy street scene. I'm really talking about portraiture. I always ask for permission and I show them what they look like in the camera, because I don't want bad photos of myself out in the world where I look one eye closed, or I'm looking in the wrong way or blinking. 

I really want them to see, like I want you to feel beautiful and seen in the photo I'm taking of you. I also travel with my husband who speaks the language, he's fluent in Hindi, he's fluent in Bengali. It allows me to have kind of a connection, a deeper – to really establish – I don't want to call it a relationship, but that a connection before I take – the respect before I take a photograph.

I think about that a lot. I'm very cognizant of coming to a place and just like starting to photograph people without knowing their customs or their traditions around being photographed, how they might have feelings about it. Even in this day and age of cellphones, I think, where everyone's a camera, and everyone's taking photos all the time, I still try and approach it with a lot of respect, and acknowledge my privilege whether I'm a white woman moving in this society, whether I'm a tourist with more capital, more money than that community I'm visiting. There are different levels of privilege. I think about these things a lot, and I think as travel writers, we have to. I think we have to.

[00:30:34] YD: Absolutely. I love that. We can have this conversation for a while too, but there's so much more. There's so much that I want to ask you, and we're already like half the time going so fast. This is crazy. But I wanted to ask you about the pitching process, actually, because you said something in the beginning that book concept pitching and idea of pitching for publications is similar in a lot of ways, but also different in a lot of ways. Can you tell us a bit about that? What are some of the similarities that you found? What are some of the differences as well?

[00:31:04] CC: Sure. In part of my work, what I do is I act as a book proposal coach, I've been doing this for quite a while now. I've been in the publishing industry in various ways for a long time, both on the PR side and on the author side. I now offer coaching to people who want to put together a book proposal to shop to publishers.

A book proposal is essentially, in a way, it's a pitch. In a way, it's also a business document, because you're asking a publisher to invest in your project. We're talking about nonfiction, heavy photography books, those are my specialty. So we're talking travel, cookbooks, interior design, floral gardening, all of those kinds of fall into those. I don't like to use the word coffee table. But I think you're kind of understanding what I'm talking about here when I say heavy photography, lifestyle books. 

These are 40-page documents that are not only describing your concept to the publisher, but they're giving them a background about you as the author, they're giving you marketing and PR around how you're going to sell this book. You're doing market research to see how your book fits into an already very crowded marketplace. All of this goes into this 40-page document, but I always tell my clients, every word needs to earn its place on the page. Even though it's 40 documents, this is an elevator pitch. You have to condense your idea into something that's bite-sized, something they can understand and get excited about. I mean, isn't that essentially what we're doing in magazine pitching, right?

In a way, it's similar and it's different, but there's a lot of similar muscles that you use when you're pitching a magazine as to when you're pitching a book. I am very comfortable doing book proposals. I can write them all day long. I deal with my clients. I've found really good success. Most of my clients land with the top publishing house and with top agents. And, sometimes I really have a hard time condensing my ideas down to a paragraph, coming off these 40-page documents. Again, I bite off more than I chew sometimes, so I have these huge ideas for an article and then I'm trying to put them into a paragraph. And it's like, "I need help" and I still need help. 

I don't love pitching. It's tricky for me, I'm still learning. I do love getting help. I will be the first to buy a session with someone like yourself to get help. Because for me, it's practice, it's getting professional help, just how I can help people professionally do a book proposal. You are an expert at pitching, you're very good at it.

Everybody needs help. I don't think I’ll ever grow out of a phase where I still need help with certain aspects of the business. And you know too, we're expected to be so many things. We're like, we need to know how to pitch, then we need to know how to write it, and then we're supposed to share on social media, and we have to have a brand platform, and so now we have to know how to take photos and videos. It's a lot. There are areas where I need help. If I need help, and I can afford it, I'm going to go to someone and invest in their knowledge. I think that is a beautiful thing.

[00:34:05] YD: Yeah, I agree with you. It's interesting, especially as I sort of started this journey of building the business side of Travel Media Lab, I joined the membership community for women entrepreneurs, where it wasn't cheap, by the way, that community. But you know, getting that help and that support and that professional look at what you're doing. I am a true believer in that too, because I think, we can spend so much time and so much effort trying to figure it out on our own. Eventually, we'll figure something out. But why do that when you just have – you have so many people sharing their expertise. I'm a huge believer in that too. By the way, I need to work with you on a book proposal.

[00:34:40] CC: Let's do it. Let's do it. Well, here's something I'll say. I'm sure you found the same. For a long time, everyone wanted to pick my brain. I was finding myself on endless calls, where I was – people were telling me their book idea, and they were telling me all the things they wanted to do. I'm sitting there like, "I should not be listening to this for free." I have built this brain. I've built this body of knowledge. So, similar to you, I now offer a one-hour call and I am happy to explain the entire publishing journey. We can go over your book, we can do all these things. But now, I'm really like, "You will pay for my time.” People need to pay for the time. I think as women, a lot of times, especially, we're asked to do a lot of emotional labor. It's like, "Well, don't you want to mentor the next generation?" Yes, I do, but that's separate. There's my business and I do a lot of mentoring. But I am very comfortable now asking people to pay to access the knowledge that I've spent so long building. 

I was so excited to be able to pay you for an hour of your time. I think, more of us need to be doing that when we've put in the work to gain this body of knowledge. It's okay to ask to be paid for that. So, I have put a firm stop to the brain picking, like you do not – if I have extra energy, it's going to my family, I'm going for a walk with a friend, I'm going on a date with my husband. I am not getting on the phone for free.

[00:35:59] YD: 100%. No, 100%. It took me a while to get there to be honest. Like all those things that we've been socialized into that, we're just supposed to be always available and helpful and all of that. I mean, to this day, people are sending me emails, and Instagram DMs, asking me these huge questions. Like seriously? Who has the time and the availability to do that for free? I mean, there is no way. So yeah, I don't do that.

[00:36:26] CC: Same. It's so nice to kind of have this response now too, that I've really had to practice. But it's like, "That is such a great question and one I'd love to help you answer. Here's where you can sign up for an hour of my time."

[00:36:36] YD: Absolutely.

[00:36:37] CC: I think that's so empowering to finally say like, "My time is worthwhile, my time is worth money and my time is worth paying for.” This body of knowledge did not come easy, so –

[00:36:48] YD: My time and my expertise that I spent years, decades in your case, a decade of developing that.

[00:36:54] CC: Yeah. Gosh, 14 years now doing this work. Yeah.

[00:36:58] YD: Amazing. Oh my goodness. So yeah, I will definitely – we'll talk offline, but I want to I want to book a session with you and talk about a book. Because I've actually done a book proposal on my own, I think last year or the year before, and I've sent it to a few agents, but it never went anywhere. It wasn't 40 pages, it was I think three. Now, I see where I was wrong.

[00:37:16] CC: We need to talk. We need to talk. Here's what I'll say, a little history of book proposal. Five years ago, 10 years ago, you could get away with a document that was a Word document, that was for the type of books I'm talking about, maybe dragged in a couple pictures into the Word document. The proposals that I am successfully finding homes for now are fully designed beautiful PDFs that look like they could be the book. They have beautiful photography, we spend time – I work with the graphic designer. They are very large projects that people are spending six months working with me to produce. Honestly, I'm not going to say in every case, that's what you need. But it is an incredibly competitive market to land these kinds of book deals. They're expensive books to produce. They're mostly hardcover, they're full color. That's what it takes. 

I think, my specialty has become helping people turn this concept into a fully illustrated, full color, beautifully designed book proposal that really captures exactly what their concept is. Usually, from the start to the end of our work together, it changes because they recognize that, "Oh, maybe that's not the exact place in the market for my book. Maybe that idea has been done already, and I need to kind of go a different route. Or maybe this book is going to be too niche and I need to learn how to expand it into other markets." I do a lot of work with people on each section of the proposal, and it's really – what's wonderful is once you have a really solid book proposal, it's a blueprint on how to write your book. 

If I said to you tomorrow, "Go write a book, it's due in six months." Most people would have no idea like, "I don't even know where to start." But if you've done the work of a thoughtful, well-done proposal, you get your book deal, and they say you have six months before you turn all this in, you are in a really good place. You have your structure and your blueprint, you keep referring back to that proposal, and it makes the process so much easier. It's worth it to invest the time upfront and do a really well-done, thoughtful book proposal. Not only will you land the best publishing deal, but you're going to have that structure in place when it comes time to write the book.

[00:39:21] YD: Oh, I love that. I love that. I think you said that there's two ways in which people can work with you. One is that individual session, which sounds like it's more of a – it's not a six months situation. It's a one-time consulting session. Then, I think you offer a course, a group course that people can sign up for and go through that six-month process with you. Tell us more about that.

[00:39:44] CC: I do, yeah. I actually have three ways. One is the one-hour call, and I always say, if you have no idea where to start, you have a book in you, but you don't know where to start. The one-hour call is a wonderful place to begin. Similarly, if you've sent a proposal out and you are not getting any interest, that's a good spot to begin as well, because you can send that to me and we'll spend the hour deciding what's not working about it, and what you can do differently, where you need to improve. I also show you samples of proposals that have successfully sold. So now, you start to get an idea of what the marketplace looks like and kind of where you need to step up your game, where you need to improve, what it takes to land a book deal. That's the one-hour call. You can sign up for those easily.

Then, I also offer one-on-one coaching. That is a full on, I am editing your entire document. Every other week, we have a one-hour Zoom call, email access, kind of the whole shebang. And I get you to the finish line and then I introduce you to agents as well. I have a network of agents that I work with. I very highly suggest being represented by an agent before you sign a book deal. For those clients, that is kind of all immersive experience, six months, and it ends with, I would say, about 90% of my clients land a book deal at the end.

If they don't, there's a reason for it. It's usually pretty clear, it usually has to do with audience to be totally honest. They don't have enough of an audience to support a book. That's something we can talk about. But I'm sure you can guess, you do have to have a platform, you have to have a way to sell this book. It's not just about social media numbers, there's a lot that goes into it. But you definitely have to have a platform of some kind, before you're going to write a hardcover, expensive book and try and get it out into the world. 

Anyway, that's the second way. Again, one on one packages. Then the third way is I run a small live course, that's a six-week course. Really, it's kind of your boot camp for writing a book proposal. I try and run it twice a year in the spring and in the fall, and it's only 10 people. It's an intimate kind of experience, you get your questions answered. There's group chat and all of that. I actually don't know how much longer I'll keep it up. My own work is starting to eclipse my availability. The spring course is full, but I'm hoping maybe to do a fall course. 

In general, I think I'm at a wonderful place where I do have a lot of client work, but I'm starting to scale that back as my own work. My book projects, I do a lot of licensing of my photos, I'm doing puzzles, I'm doing stationery and then all my travel writing. So a lot of that is starting to take more and more of my time. Again, I'm very type A, so I'm always looking at – I have two charts. I have one how I spend my time, and one my income. When those start to get out of whack, like I'm spending way too much time and earning very little in a category, I start to kind of think, "Okay. How can we bring this back into balance.”

I'm always kind of looking at my time usage versus my income. I think my goal is really to get to a place where I have fewer clients, and I'm doing a lot more of my own work, a lot more licensing, book projects and travel writing, really. I'm kind of gradually moving into that space, whereas this past year, I did a lot of client work, a lot. So I'm looking to bring it into balance.

[00:42:52] YD: I am still processing the chart information. They have a chart that looks like those two things, like wow.

[00:42:59] CC: Yeah, I'm intense. I hear that word sometimes. I'm intense.

[00:43:03] YD: That's where you get the really smart decisions, though. You say you're intense, but that’s how you make smart decisions when it's driven by that kind of insight. That's amazing. 

[00:43:12] CC: Yeah. I always tell people, a lot of what I do, I feel like for my clients is almost business coaching. It's helping them – how are we going to finish this book on time? How are we going to adhere to this schedule? How are you creating time in your life to write and to meet your goals? We do a lot of talking about that during the book proposal process, but it's okay for that to be out of whack, if the thing that you're spending so much time on brings you joy.

I would say, travel writing is not my most lucrative part of my business, but it brings me so much joy, my editorial work brings me immense pleasure. I'm okay spending more time on that, and if the equation is a little out of whack there, that's okay. But if something is very draining, and not making you money, I think it's time to reevaluate. Why am I spending my time doing this if it's not financially getting me to where I need to be, and it's also not bringing joy and new experiences into my life?

I just am always looking at that and I think it's against the backdrop of wanting to also spend as much time with my kids as possible. So I'm not going to invest my time in something that takes me away from my family, unless it's really leading me to a place that I want to go.

[00:44:20] YD: Yeah. That makes total sense. What do you think it is about travel writing that gives you so much joy?

[00:44:26] CC: Oh my goodness, where to start? Meeting people, getting to experience different parts of the world, getting to hear different stories kind of walk with someone along in their story that's so different from mine. I love beautiful spaces, I love design, I love architecture. I love beautiful boutique hotels and interesting shop concepts, and beautifully done restaurants. I just love the act of discovering.

You can put me in a city and I will walk – I mean, 12 to 15 miles in a day because I'm like, I need to see everything. I need to see every block, I need to take all the photos. I love discovering. I kind of love experiencing. I love connecting. I grew up for a long time. Our trips were like, we were in a minivan driving up to Northern Michigan from Southern Michigan. Or we went to Florida to visit my grandparents, but they were not – it's not a lot of grand trips until we had a little bit more means as I got into my teenage years and really started – we went to Alaska, I remember was kind of our first big trip.

I remember, my dad and I actually climbed Mount Kilimanjaro together on my 16th birthday, but those experiences came later. When they came, I was so ready to accept them and I was so appreciative. I've kind of never stopped moving since. I've always been – well, I should say, I'm very rooted in my home. I've lived in – we've lived in this house for a long time, but I love going out and exploring. Again, whether it's just down the street, I'm like walking every day, or going to new locations. But I love discovering, I love being on the move.

[00:45:54] YD: I know. I think that's why we we've connected so well as well, because I kind of feel like we have a lot of things in common, especially like the writing and the photography part, and being so visual, but also being driven by stories. Yeah, I can resonate with a lot of what you said, besides having a husband and three kids. But hopefully, I'll catch up in that department at some point. But tell me, you have such an illustrious career at this point, and you've done a lot of different things that we covered in the last hour, your book, your amazing success with the book and the second book coming out. Which by the way, congratulations on that.

[00:46:30] CC: Thank you.

[00:46:31] YD: All the beautiful stories that you've done, and your work with clients and licensing and all of that. What do you think would be the biggest misconception that people have when they think about somebody like that, right? You're very successful, you have all these things happening. You're a travel writer, you travel, you work with different tourism boards, you are a photographer, you're selling your work. There's a lot of things that you're doing and you're obviously a very creative person. What do you think people don't understand or misunderstand that you wish they would know about a career path like that?

[00:47:04] CC: Oh gosh! Okay. I mean, two things. One, that it's glamorous. I mean, so much of my time is spent in front of my computer, I'm meeting deadlines, I am constantly answering emails and Zooming, Zoom all the time, all I do is zoom. When I am traveling, it is glamorous, it's also work. I think we've talked about this before. I'm up at sunrise to shoot in the first light. I am busy all day in meeting people, interviewing. I feel like I want leave no stone unturned, so I'm hard on myself. I'd see everything, I kind of pack my schedule. Sometimes I exhaust myself, most of the time. Then, I'm shooting at the end of the day in the golden light. Then, I'm going back to my room and I'm transcribing my notes, and I'm backing up all my photography. 

After two weeks of something like that, like you're exhausted, it is exhausting. Then you come home and everyone's like, "How was your vacation?" I come home to three kids who have missed me a lot, and it's like, "Okay. Now, I'm in my mom zone,” and I need to be there for school pickup and present for them in the mornings, and I'm like jet lagged and exhausted. Yes, it's a beautiful job. I think, I usually only take a couple trips a year, maybe four to five trips a year. Most of my time is spent more on the administrative and writing side. I do try and get multiple stories out of every place I travel. I think that's something – it can be tempting to always want to take the next trip, but I really try and mine the trips that I'm on for all the little gems and stories I can. Because again, my travel time is limited. I am someone who needs to be home more than I'm on the road. 

I think that's one misconception, is that it's just very glamorous. I'm just staying in beautiful hotels like kicking my feet up by the pool. That's very often not the case. I wish it was. It's also hard to shut up. I think when you travel, even now with my family or just for fun, in the back of my mind, oh my God. It's like, "What's my pitch? What's my story?" And I'm like, "Stop." Sometimes I know I could get a press stay or I could get a press rate at a hotel. I'm like, I'm not going to because I just really want to show up and have this be a vacation. I'm just going on vacation with my kids. Turning it off is really hard. 

Then I think, second, is this idea that I'm successful and have made it. I feel like I'm just getting started. I still have a lot of impostor syndrome. I feel like there's things I should have done. I should have worked in a magazine. I should have moved to New York and networked more. I should have done all these things. I still have that impostor syndrome. I do have confidence. I know I'm good at what I do, so I have a lot of self-confidence. But imposter syndrome is different. I think it's like, "Do I deserve to be in these spaces?" or "How do I move through these spaces?" or "Did I take the right career track to be in these spaces?" Then, I also think a lot honestly about aging out of it. I think, especially with women, it's great when you're young and then you reach this age where you're very disposable in our culture. I kind of keep thinking, "Oh my God, I'd hit my prime right at the time where everyone's going to be like, "You're an old lady, get out of this room." I do think about that. 

In a way, sometimes I thank God, I really did give up a lot of my 20s to raising kids. My 20s into my 30s. I'm like, I'm just getting started. Yet, I think the world sees me as middle aged, and I certainly don't see myself as that. I turned 40 this year. I feel like I'm just getting started. I hope that there's going to be room for voices of my age in the industry for a long time, and that I'm kind of not viewed as a dinosaur soon. Because I do, I think we push women out of the picture really early, whether it's in whatever industry it's in. We deem them out of touch at a very young age.

[00:50:38] YD: God, Christine.

[00:50:39] CC: That's depressing.

[00:50:40] YD: It's so relevant, right? It's what I think about a lot as well. Especially what you said about imposter syndrome and thinking if you – should you have done something differently. I started noticing, that's the key point there, because I used to do that a lot and I still do it. But when I noticed it now, I really make a conscious effort to say, "Yulia, be kind to yourself. This is your path. This path has led you here and you have to trust that is going to lead you even further.”

Because it is so easy to go down that path of, "Oh, I should have done this, or I should have been faster, smarter, I should have pitched more, I should have done more, I should have been in New York." There's just so many should haves that we can do. I am really just so conscious lately that like, just be kind, okay? Be kind to yourself, this is your path and it's unfolded the way it did. It's going to take you elsewhere as well. It's just resonating with me so much with what you're saying.

[00:51:40] CC: I think also, the social media, we know this now. It doesn't even hardly bear repeating, but it does – it gives me a lot of self-doubt. When I get on social media, I'm like, "Oh my God! Everyone's publishing more. Everyone's doing more. Everyone has more followers." Then I'm like, "What? Stop. Shut it down, get off." It's easy for me as an author to think, "I should have 100,000 followers, I should have sold more books, I need to do this, I need to do that." I can't do it all. I'm really trying to move into a phase, this is my year of being really gentle on myself. I am resting if I need rest. I am taking a walk if I need to take a walk. I am putting down the phone. I am not going to be pressured to join TikTok if I don't want to. I just need to put some boundaries in place to also just feel my success, and celebrate it and feel like I'm in a good place. I think I don't want to be in that comparison game. I really just want to focus on telling quality stories, doing quality work and letting a lot of it go, I do.

I still fall into that trap a lot. I think social media for me is that place I can fall into it. I'm just on Instagram, but Instagram, I can start looking. It's like, "Everyone's traveling, everyone's doing this. I'm at home with sick kids, I'm a loser." That's the time to log off. It's like, again, my method is, I take a walk. Put my phone down, leave it, take a long walk. When you get back, it's like you always feel better. You have new ideas, you feel good, your body feels energized. But oh gosh, I fall into that all the time. I do. I don't know that you ever outgrow that in your career?

[00:53:05] YD: Yeah. You just learn how to like not give that voice that much credence really, and just move forward anyway. I think it's interesting because it's also sometimes helpful to see comparisons, but in a very different way. What I mean by that is, sometimes people come up to me, they're like, "Oh my God, you have so however many followers on Instagram." To your point, you're like, "Well, I should – maybe I should have 100,000 if I'm a book author." But somebody sees your Instagram, and they're like, "Oh my God, she has so many followers." It's all also very relative with where we are, which again goes back to that point of comparison.

[00:53:40] CC: Well, my husband's not on social media and he's really funny. Because in his eyes, I'm a star. 

[00:53:46] YD: Exactly. 

[00:53:47] CC: You have 22,000 people that follow you. It's like, that's nothing. He's like, that's everything. I'm like, "Oh, thank you, honey." But like, he doesn't even know, honestly, doesn't know what Instagram is. But he's very funny, because in his perspective, he's like, 22,000 people tune in to see what you have to say. I'm like – well, I try and tell him about the algorithm and like no one's seeing, he's just like, "I think it's amazing." I was like, "Well, thank you." So you're right, it's all about perspective, totally.

[00:54:12] YD: Then what you said about aging, oh my God. That hit the spot. I'm turning 40 this year as well, and it's interesting, because what I've started thinking about lately is, physically being able to do this job. Because on some of the photography, it's not only like everything that you've described, how the schedule isn't everything. But then you're physically very active with the camera.

[00:54:35] CC: Absolutely. And carrying it, and the strain on your neck. Oh my God! 

[00:54:40] YD: The back is killing me. Then like, when I'm 60, will I be able to do this? Hopefully, but I start thinking, "Well, what do I need to do now?" What does that mean for when I'm 60?" It's so interesting to think about that because yeah, that's a very real thing as well.

[00:54:57]CC: Even the jet lag, too. I mean, my husband is – he's a little older than I am. He just got back from India. He was dead for a week, like he was napping for hours during the day. I was like, "Are you okay?" But seeing how age, in his mind, he's 20, but his body is not. And that jet lag from India home, I mean, it did a number on him. It was brutal. I think for the first time it clicked to him, I might not be able to do this forever. I mean, he was used to like – he goes to India, he's the same thing, he's in fundraising, he's pulling long days. You get home, he's like back on his feet, he's fine. That was not the case anymore. I do think there's that aging component of how do we do this work in a way that is sustainable for our bodies, really, because it is very physical work.

[00:55:43] YD: Yeah. For me, one of the answers is moving closer to the region where I want to do the work, so I don't have any more of those transatlantic flights. But yeah, there's different things that we can think of. But before we close, and I just have a few more things I want to just ask you. But I think, one last thing on the aging is that, yes, 100% agree with you that we are at a certain point, we turn into pumpkins and become irrelevant, it seems like. That's what the media is really set on convincing us. But at the same time, I'm also very hopeful, because I kind of feel like you, I am growing into the most amazing version of me, and I'm just getting started. Sometimes I think, when I have those thoughts, it's like, "Well, okay. We're getting irrelevant over here,” but let's create our own space where we have relevance. That is very exciting and hopeful.

[00:56:33] CC: There's always hope. I was telling a friend, I gave a talk recently to some high schoolers about my career. I was asked to come in and talk to them. I said, "Who here has ever subscribed to a magazine?" and no one raised their hand. I'm like, "Oh my God." Then I'm like, "Who's ever read a magazine?" There were like three hands raised out of the class. I was just like, "Oh my God!" Then I thought, it's okay, we can create our own spaces, we can create our spaces where magazines and print are still cherished. There will always be a place for books. It's not always going to be for everyone, and maybe the new generation will have different ways that they get their information. But we can certainly create spaces where we still believe in the power of print, we still believe in beautiful material that is tactile, and you can hold in your hands. Like all of that can still exist. So that's okay. There can be their reality, and our reality and they can coexist.

I tried not to get so depressed about it, and then it was like, "I probably wasn't reading magazines in the same way as – when I was that age, we're going to let it go. We're going to make our own spaces. It's okay."

[00:57:35] YD: We can create our own spaces, Christine, or we can just sign up for TikTok. I mean, I literally reinstated TikTok yesterday. I had it, I downloaded it, I deleted it. And yes, literally yesterday, the day before our conversation, I'm like, "Let me see if I need to get back on TikTok."

[00:57:52] CC: Oh no! Let me know how it goes. That’s a bridge, again, I do not have the energy to cross at the moment.

[00:57:58] YD: Yeah, totally. Well, I think about it in terms of who knows how the format will look like 20 years from now. But the need for stories will always be there. That's what kind of gives me hope, that maybe we'll transport it via telepathy or something. But you know, we'll be telling stories throughout history, I think.

Christine, I don't know how this hour has passed so fast, because I feel like we just only started scratching the surface and really getting into some really interesting spaces. But of course, we also have to give – you have to get back to your three kids and your crazy schedule. I am actually jet lagged today, because I just landed from Doha yesterday. We're going to be wrapping up this conversation. But before we do, a couple of things I wanted to ask you. One was, what is it that makes you excited about what's coming up for you on the horizon, whether it's work, whether it's some other things, or maybe personal projects that you're working on? But what is something that's given you a lot of joy at the moment?

[00:59:00] CC: Oh my goodness. We are taking a family trip coming up to a place that we've really wanted to go all together and so I'm excited. It's kind of our first bigger trip post pandemic with our kids. That excites me very much. I'm really, really ready to start introducing my children to the world of travel in the way I travel. We haven't been able to do that together really, recently. 

I have a couple of big trips planned for us this year that really do center around family travel, exposing my kids to new places, new stories, new people, and I'm very, very excited for that. Then, I do have some wonderful projects of my own, and travel of my own, and places I'm really excited. I'm doing domestic travel, which I haven't done in a while. I've been going kind of far-flung locations. I'm like, let me dig in at home and see domestically what's going on. 

I have some really lovely trips coming up domestically and obviously very excited for spring of 2024 when my next book comes out, Patterns of Portugal. It is, oh my goodness. I think it's going to be so beautiful, and there's a reason I chose Portugal. It will be in the book. I'll be talking about it a lot, so make sure – hopefully, you can all tune in, sharing why I picked Portugal. There are some really fun reasons, both kinds of family reasons, and larger cultural reasons.

It's such a beautiful country, it was such a pleasure to spend the past couple years traveling there extensively, meeting people. I'm just really excited. I think it's going to be a beautiful book, I'm excited to get on the road, and I didn't really get a book tour with Patterns of India, because of the pandemic. So I'm excited to get back out in the community, and host events and talk about why we love to travel, and see new places and share the book. That's probably my biggest professional excitement right now.

[01:00:47] YD: Well, I can't even imagine. That sounds so amazing, and I love how that concept patterns of a country can just really be expandable, and you can see so many projects like that in the future, which is really cool. So yeah, congrats again on the book, that's really amazing. 

[01:01:03] CC: Thank you.

[01:01:04] YD: Really awesome. You can find Christine on her website, which we're going to link in the show notes, and we're also going to link to her Instagram and link to her course on book proposals. So, you guys can all see what she's working on, and join her amazing, inspiring journey and follow along as well. Finally, I want to ask your question that I always sort of close these conversations with. It's a bit of a big question, but how would you start answering this. What does it mean to be a woman in travel who is stepping into her brilliance today?

[01:01:39] CC: Oh, that's a big question. I think, for me, it's about trusting that I know what I'm doing after all this time, like very much believing in myself, believing in women, and other women and really believing that our stories deserve to be heard. 

[01:01:56] YD: Oh, that is so beautiful. That is so amazing. Of course, in community with each other is where we find all that support, and all that strength and power to continuing to do this beautiful work. I love this, Christine. That's a very amazing sentiment to end the conversation on. I want to thank you so much for coming today.

[01:02:18] CC: This was such a pleasure. I can't believe how fast it went. 

[01:02:21] YD: Right? It did, it flew by, it really flew by. I keep looking at the clock and like, "Oh God, we need to start wrapping up, but I don't want to."

[01:02:29] CC: No, but it was amazing. It's such a privilege to be here. I really love, I do. I genuinely love your podcast. I tell all travel writers to listen to it. I think it is essential listening. I think what you're doing for this community is a huge service, really taking down the barriers of entry and letting people know that everyone has stories that they can tell and empowering people to do that, so I applaud you. I love what you're doing. Huge fan. Very honored to be here, so thank you.

[01:02:55] YD: Likewise. It's so cool how we're each other's fans. I love it.

[01:02:59] CC: Fan girls, big time.

[01:03:01] YD: I know, amazing. Well, thank you so much, Christine and we'll see you soon. 

[01:03:05] CC: Thank you.

[OUTRO]

[01:03:07] YD: Thank you so much for listening today. I hope you enjoyed the conversation with Christine. If so, I want to ask you to please take a minute right now to support our show. You can do that by leaving us a rating, or review on the podcast app that you're listening to right now, or by sharing this episode with your friends, loved ones, or posting about it on social media. It really helps us get discovered by more listeners that would find our show helpful and it means so much to me. I read every single review we get and I take it very seriously, because I want to create a great show for you.

So, if you've been inspired by something you heard today in our conversation with Christine or in any other episodes of our show, please take just a minute to support that by leaving us your rating or review. This is one of the best ways you can help us out. Thank you so much again for listening today and stay tuned for next week.

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